HotDog Professional

Topic 81 · 39 responses · archived october 2000

» This is an archived thread from 2000. Want to pick up where they left off? post in the live Apps conference →

~terry Wed, Jul 24, 1996 (11:42) seed

HotDog Professional -- This is indeed one HOT application -- HotDog Pro combines all of the same great features found in its less-expensive sidekick, HotDog Standard, with many essential and necessary new features. HotDog Pro capitalizes on the standard version's few deficiencies -- a spelling checker (American English is pre-installed with the package but UK English, French, German, and Italian dictionaries are also available) is included, customizable tags and shortcut keys make redundant tasks much easier, an integrated FTP client facilitates the task of uploading web documents to remote sites, and customizable templates have now been introduced as well. new features in the latest version include ROVER -- a real-time output viewer which gives you the option of a WYSIWYG presentation (this is actually I-View code included in HotDog Pro), a new syntax checker, web projects (for saving you time by efficitently integrating your web pages), colored tags (for determining level of compliance), support for Microsoft Internet Explorer tags an HTML converter, and much more. Beyond these features, three additional new options demand further attention. First, HotDog Pro includes a multiple level undo command. While this is a necessary function for users, I was quite surprised to find that a complimenting redo option (either singular or multiple level) remains absent from the program. Second, if you found the layout of HotDog Standard's Button Bar counter-intuitive to your needs (as did I), you'll be glad to know that you can customize this bar in HotDog Pro to you heart's content. In addition to being able to move the respective buttons, you can also create new functions and remove old ones from the bar. Finally, HotDog Professional introduces an extremely useful function for any webmaster given the task of maintaining many pages -- multiple file find and replace. With this command, you can easily revise an entire web site with new information. For example, if you have a certain linked image on fifteen different pages whose link changes, you can use this command to quickly and automatically replace the old link with the new one. I can't over-emphasize the importance of the global find and replace function and also the many additional features included in HotDog Pro. Bar none, HotDog Pro is the best HTML editor on the market -- nothing else even comes close at this point. The future looks even brighter -- upcoming versions of HotDog Pro are expected to include WYSIWYG editing, a 32-bit release, image manipulation, and support for new features like Java and VRML. HotDog Pro is the most intuitive HTML editor available and includes more features than any other editor; at only $99.95, it is cheaper than most of the competition as well. In short, like Netscape Navigator, Pegasus Mail, and Agent, this is one must-have app for Windows users. The only additional features I could hope for in HotDog Pro would be a thesaurus and a native 32-bit version... Pros: Excellent interface, every HTML command imaginable, extremely easy to use Cons: Lacks a thesaurus and shortcut commands for many options including Spell Checker New: FTP quick uploading, real-time output viewer, HTML conversion utility, 32-bit release, more Version Reviewed: 16-bit - 2.52. 32-bit - 1.01 Beta Date of Review: 5/28/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud

~terry Mon, Jul 29, 1996 (12:40) #1

If these guys do wysiwyg right, look out, we'll have a killer html authoring package on our hands that will be hard to beat. Knowing these guys, they'll probably do it right. It will be interesting to watch.

~KK Tue, Jul 30, 1996 (11:19) #2

I came here looking for info on the new 32-bit version of Hot Dog. I was wondering if the Pro version was substantially better than the Standard. Found all my answers here in Forest Stroud's review. If anyone has anything to add, I'd be interested in reading about your experiences with it. I have been using Standards ver. 1. and I was very happy with it. It's time to upgrade and I was just wondering if I should stick with Hotdog. Seems so.--KK

~terry Tue, Jul 30, 1996 (11:37) #3

I would upgrade because the 32-bit version offers a lot and with wysiwyg just around the corner, there's something to look forward to. I would be interested in finding out what Sausage's upgrade policy is for current Hot Dog Pro 32-bit users and, if there's an upgrade fee, what it would be. This might enter into your decision, Karen.

~KK Tue, Jul 30, 1996 (11:46) #4

Their upgrade pricing is a bit confusing. On http://www.sausage.com/howorder.htm they say an upgrade from Standard to Pro is $70 (grrowl). And from ver 1 to 32-bit is either $10 or $40, depending on if you want the standard or the pro. I thought I downloaded the Standard 32-bit, but it seems to have defaulted to the Pro. I've sent email to sales@sausage.com.au for clarification and will share it here when it comes.

~terry Tue, Jul 30, 1996 (17:43) #5

Did you try the link on Forrest's site for downloading? There are also some support files that you need. Here's the url that Forrest lists: ftp://ftp.sausage.com/pub/hd32inst.exe And here are the support files: ftp://ftp.sausage.com/pub/Hd32bsupp.exe This should get you into 32-bit nirvana.

~KK Sat, Aug 3, 1996 (16:07) #6

I upgraded with the new files and support files from Stroud's site. But now that I've got it, I can't figure out how to configure it the way I want. I want to minimize that huge main toolbar and I want to customize it so as to add a number of command buttons. Yes, I know it is customizable, but the help sections tutuorials are lousy and I am having a heck of a time learning how to work with the upgrad e.

~terry Sat, Aug 3, 1996 (22:18) #7

I haven't tried to customize the toolbar yet, what functions do you add to the toolbar? I'll have to take a look Monday, since I don't have HotDog 32 bit on this machine I'm on now.

~terry Wed, Aug 7, 1996 (21:00) #8

More folks may be on the way. I talked to Forrest and he's adding links to here from his site. So get ready for prime time!

~KK Thu, Aug 8, 1996 (18:03) #9

I'm one week into using HotDog Pro after having mastered HotStandard 1.0. It's frustrating. I find I can only paste info into a Table having each line item appear in separate rows, when I want them to go in separate columns. Anyone try this? KK

~terry Fri, Aug 9, 1996 (22:38) #10

You mean 1.0 is better than Pro at tables?

~KK Mon, Aug 12, 1996 (11:48) #11

No, I'm saying that whatever new Table functions it has are not intuitive and I'm having trouble using it.

~terry Mon, Sep 16, 1996 (18:45) #12

Have you figured out the multiple file search and replace function? That is one of HotDog's coolest features.

~Martinator Thu, Sep 19, 1996 (12:19) #13

When the 32-bit version of Hot Dog came out everybody at my company was excited. That was until we started using it. The UI was total crap. All those buttons that were in the 16 bit version vanished. Sure you can add them yourself but #1 it is a pain, #2 your screen gets real cluttered real fast. It was also the buggiest piece of software ever to hit my machine (and I've had some real winners). Photoshop wouldn't launch correctly because HD32 loaded a WinNT dll where it shouldn't have. To top it off you only had 14 days to review it. You couldn't install a newer version to see f they fixed their bugs because they put something in the windows registry that won't allow you to run HD32 after a certain amount of time. The result: companywide migration AWAY from hotdog to other (more stable/better) web editors. Hot dog was the best. Keyword: was. But I think they really screwed up with their horrible 32-bit version. It's a shame because they could've done so much better. A 32-bit version of their 16 bit version would've even been better. The best editor fo tables (aside fron Internet assistant for Word) is HoT MetaL 3.0 Pro. Martinator

~Critter Tue, Oct 1, 1996 (09:45) #14

I see a mixed response to the new 32bit version of HD. I have been using it for quite some time and feel, after testing many other programs, that it is the best program for me to use. But, then that is the real point - what I like to use. The newest version has so many new features combined with some changes in format that it takes some getting used to. I still like it and am learning it's new style as I go. The first couple of betas in 32bit were quite bad! But, they have realized most of their mis akes and have produce the newest version that is very nice. As when I first started out, I suggest anyone who has not tried other programs in some time or that is brand new at this stuff to try several of the latest programs and find the one that fits your style and tastes.

~dwight Wed, Oct 2, 1996 (20:51) #15

I think you're seeing reviews of the OLD 32-bit version of HotDog Pro (v 1.1) ... The latest version, 3.07, is AWESOME. Fixes the interface problems of 1.1 and adds a bunch of new features.

~terry Wed, Oct 2, 1996 (21:31) #16

That's real good news!

~Steven Fri, Oct 4, 1996 (19:02) #17

Hot Dog is better than before but it is much more troublesome with other Windows products. It crashes a lot and is very slow. Does anyone else have these problems or is it just me. Does anyone have the 3.07 version? How is it and is it worth upgrading?

~Laurie Sun, Oct 20, 1996 (20:10) #18

A budding HTML Author, I was attracted to HotDog by its ease-of-use reputation. I got so frustrated in the two weeks of using it I almost kicked MY dog. That baby went out with the next load of cyber-trash. I'm pleased as punch, tho, with my new partner in web site design, Homesite. I love Homesite's quick and easy internal browser, as well as the speed and ease with which it sets up the external browser. The ability to browse files in the same window is a bonus, helping to make work a snap. The toolbar is complete and straight forward (Sausage should consider canning the cutesy dog bit and reconsider the ground it is loosing with some great contenders tapping at its heels). Insertion of images with drag and drop ease, and anchors with a click on the tool bar add to my admiration of Homesite. I have yet to experience slow startup of the program, as mentioned in one review I read. And I don't have to remember to mute the sound for fear that annoying howl on opening (HotDog) will send me through the "ruff" once and for all. Laurie

~wizzle Sat, Oct 26, 1996 (18:45) #19

After 40 some odd years on this planet I have finally figured out that guys get places "intuitively" while a woman would say she is lost. These same guys think programs are "intuitive" which means you click every icon 50 times to figure out what it really does. I got the upgrade for $30 cause I had purchased HotDogPro 16 bit and I agree that the pricing info is VERY confusing at the Hot Dog site. This Dog (version 3.07) is a good one....gone is the god awful toolbone and the toolbarsfromhell i.e. customize customize customize......a "guy" feature if I ever saw one. Why make a homepage when you can play with your editor??

~wizzle Sat, Oct 26, 1996 (18:51) #20

~terry Sun, Oct 27, 1996 (13:19) #21

It's just a "guy" thing.

~MAndre Sun, Oct 27, 1996 (23:27) #22

I have to agree about toolbars from hell. Hotdog fer 95 last version I got made me wanna rip out my sound card. This is one of the first apps that clearly had a theme. I didnt like all the guess work that went into using it, and all the little dog sounds drove me nuts till i found the disable switch.

~terry Mon, Oct 28, 1996 (05:37) #23

I went through the same thing with the doggie sounds. It was funny for the first couple of minutes.

~terry Tue, Oct 29, 1996 (05:16) #24

The following text was copied and pasted from the now frozen, soon to be recycled, topic 303. It's ok. It's just that we already had this topic and 303 was a duplicate. Topic 303 of 303: HOTDOG PRO Mon, Oct 28, 1996 (10:57) | onpumpmd (onpumpmd) Having used the new HotDog Pro to edit my multiple sites, I find many frustrations: Loads slowly-to show us self-serving graphics, while we wait! The Help is shallow and incomplete. There is only enough information for the developer not to be accused of misrepresenting its presence. The main toolbar buttons: you can't just add a new button to the basic toolbar-unless I missed the specific instruction for that-you add a new toolbar of buttons without the original labels. Why only H1-H3?? The spell checker: It is untrainable-you can't add to it so it remains illiterate-and really-ultimately useless-to worthless; highly misrepresented. It should, like Word's Spellchecker, allow you to add words in an expanding dictionary to allow you to dev elop your own list of acceptable words and spellings. This has a teenager's list of words-everything else is highlighted for correction!! Get a life!! Tools: are scattered all over the place- not very intuitive for me. The Rover: Does NOT, that's right, does NOT reflect the HTML accurately. It drove me nuts tryong to get a list left-centered; Rover showed it as centered. When I looked at it in Netscape-it was fine. In general-this is a program filled with features-to COMPETE!! The features are often sloppy in organization, incomplete, shallow, and disorganized. It is clearly a program in evolution-I use it for certain features. In general I write HTML without any p rogram-often in HTML Writer. I reload the document in other HTML programs when I am lazy about contructing certain effects such as curved or zooming words. It is hard for me to give someone a hundred bucks for a half-baked program like this. Let's tighten up our criteria for judging the "Most Needed," and "Best of the Net" descriptions!!! 3 new of 3 responses total. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Topic 303 of 303 [apps]: HOTDOG PRO Response 1 of 3: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Oct 28, 1996 (13:49) * 2 lines Can you add these comments to the Hotdog Pro item that we already have? We need to turn this item into something else to avoid duplication of topics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Topic 303 of 303 [apps]: HOTDOG PRO Response 2 of 3: steve hanson (steve) * Mon, Oct 28, 1996 (17:42) * 1 lines this is one of the best sites i have been in for a longwhile steve

~Mark Fri, Nov 29, 1996 (03:57) #25

Before you plunk down $99 bucks on HDPro, consider my experience: Sausage debited my credit card TWICE and it has been impossible to get satisfaction. E-mails and faxes have created no responses. I guess I could try flying to Australia and punching some noses but I guess I'll just write it off to a bad on-line transaction and warn others to watch these flakes.

~Mark Fri, Nov 29, 1996 (13:03) #26

~terry Fri, Nov 29, 1996 (13:17) #27

Better yet, I've invited Hotdog to join this conference and sent them a couple of emails (to the PR dept) regarding your situation.

~drd Sun, Jan 5, 1997 (11:44) #28

Have upgraded to 32 bit version 3.09 and find when I try to use the internal upload feature, I get a file handling error. Have done re-installs and tried contacting Sausage - no results. Anyone else have this problem or find solutions to it? Thanks

~FloB Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (11:26) #29

I wonder if any of the reviewers of HotDog 3 have actually tried to load/use it? I started using HotDog Pro 16 bit and loved the product. However it has been a total bust ever since they have "tried" to make a working 32 bit editor. I am a registered owner of the first 32 bit version. The released version is full of bugs still and forget trying to get support from Sausage. Their support is to upgrade to the new version. I made my second attempt to use the beta 3 offering (version 18) this week. I could not load the simplest html document into the editor without getting "out of memory" error messages. And I did this at work where I am running 32MB RAM. AND my 30 day free trial according to the message I get when I load the program is only 14 days. PLUS after already spending $140 to purchase two previous HotDog version, now they want me to pay another $30 to be able to "beta test" the late t version. I won't even go into the part about my first purchase with Sausage when I was double charged and it took me 5 months to resolve the situation. WHY does this company get five cow, five star reviews from Tucows and Strouds?

~terry Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (17:31) #30

Probably, because for a while they were the best game in town. Now, I'm beginning to see a lot of good things about Homesite. And BBEdit on the Mac side.

~PsycoSlag Sat, Jan 18, 1997 (23:05) #31

I d/l'ed HotDog Pro 3.09 and can't seem to get any sense out of the "link sniffer". I can't see some of the things that should be visible, like clicking on the files tab, I can see the dir structure, but can't see the files. It looks like all the stuff I can't see is covered up by that stupid logo at the lower left corner of the screen. I can't make the logo disappear, and removing toolbars and changing other elements on the screen doesn't make it go away either. If that's not bad enough, www.sausage. om has been down for the past day. I really want to use this app, but not if it's so screwed up that the "features" are unusable.

~FloB Sun, Jan 19, 1997 (14:43) #32

Jim, Don't waste your time trying to get help from www.sausage.com. I downloaded Homesite yesterday, and it actually DOES everything HotDog promises to do. I tested links on all my pages today with NO problems. It also has a feature which allows you to validate your HTML code. This is a great program..and the price is right. I am deleting HotDog from my computer today. Lesson learned...don't trust reviews and promises. I am going to give Homesite the full 50 use free test, but from what I have seen so far, it delivers what it says it will.

~DavidCNelson Sat, Jan 25, 1997 (16:10) #33

Wow! What an eye-opener. Never again will I download and use (i.e. try to use) software without seeing what rank-and-file users have to say about it, at least when possible to find chat sites. I came to this site asking "Where can I download Hotdog 16-bit?" Maybe I still will (since it sounds like the 16-bit version was good, if no longer supported), since I'm still using Windows 3.1, but I'm going to check out the competition for 16-bit programs first!

~terry Sat, Jan 25, 1997 (19:32) #34

Take a look at Homesite.

~stephen Sun, Apr 6, 1997 (16:17) #35

the last date I see for a message here is in January? Anyways, I'm using Hot Dog Pro 3.0.21, and can't seem to get the "download a website" or the "upload files to a server" options to work. I have tried every combination I can think of for the server name, file names, etc, all without success. Any suggestions (besides converting to Homesite? :) Does anyone know of any other places on the net for discussing Hot Dog Pro? Thanks.

~terry Sun, Apr 6, 1997 (17:14) #36

This is the hottest hot dog pro spot on the net. Tell others!

~FloB Sun, Apr 26, 1998 (10:53) #37

If this is the hottest hot dog pro spot on the net, that confirms my opinion of the product! If you want to visit a "real hot spot" and learn about the BEST HTML editor on the net, visit http://forums.allaire.com/hsconf/index.cfm. Real users answering questions from real users, plus real time answers from Allaire technical support. Homesite is TWICE the product for HALF the price.

~terry Sun, Apr 26, 1998 (12:34) #38

I have to agree with you that Homesite is a solid product and that Hot Dog is slipping in the rankings. This has been confirmed by discussions with several Webgrrls and others who tend to favor plain text editors over fancy, schmancy html authoring software. Allaire of course, is the company that has acquired or is somehow affiliated with Homesite and Homesite supports the database tags that are used by Allaires Cold Fusion product. It doesn't surprise me that this product is pumped up on their forums.

~novell Sun, Jun 14, 1998 (11:19) #39

I am a long time WAN engineer transitioning to web publishing. I did not find HotDog Professional to be at all easy to use or user friendly. The tutorial was very basic displaying only pages of text which is nothing more than a help screen. I was very disappointed with the software. Guess it is not for a beginner.

← Prev Topic Next Topic → Help!

← Back to Apps archived from spring.net

The Spring · spring.net · Apps / Topic 81 · AustinSpring.com